Safe Trip Home : Soecial Edition (UK)＜初回生産限定盤＞

Rolling Stone (p.124) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Dido's featherweight soul has always harbored a dark side, and her third set expands her wine-bar sound with shadows....Dido's voice is so comforting, you almost miss the blues it conceals." Entertainment Weekly (p.118) - "[T]he album's co-producer, Jon Brion, masterfully adds brooding strings that suggest deeper passions at play beneath the resignation." -- Grade: B Billboard (p.77) - "'Quiet Times' is a shuffling, string-laden shanty that recalls great Brit folk-pop band the Sundays. 'It Comes and It Goes' has an irresistible sway..." Blender (Magazine) (p.77) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "'Grafton Street' achieves the delicate melancholic ambience that made her breakthrough ballad, 'Thank You,' a powerful backdrop for Eminem's 'Stan.'"

Perhaps even Dido realized that the chief criticism lodged against her first two albums was that they were a bit too placid, so she decided to change things, albeit subtly, on her third, Safe Trip Home. This album appears five years after 2003's Life for Rent, which is only a year longer than the gap between No Angel and Life, yet it feels like it had a longer gestation: Dido's songs are subtler and richer, and so is the production, largely a collaboration with Jon Brion but also featuring Brian Eno on "Grafton Street." These are two of an impressive lineup of guests who range from Mick Fleetwood to Citizen Cope and ?uestlove from the Roots, but don't be mistaken in thinking that this is a dramatic break from Dido's elegant, shimmering past: it's a deepening, adding layers and textures, both musical and emotional, that are apparent upon the first listen but reveal themselves more with repeat spins. This is less about the surface -- something that Life for Rent could sometimes seem to be all about -- than what's underneath, as Dido's songs here gently hook their way into the subconscious on. There are melancholic edges, but it's not haunting, it's comforting, reassuring music that's quietly powerful, music that Dido hinted at before but never quite made. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

前作『Life For Rent』から5年という長い年月を経てお目見えした、セルフ・プロデュースによる3作目。フィオナ・アップルなどを手掛けたジョン・ブライオンと実兄のロロ（フェイスレス）を共同プロデューサーに迎えた本作には、あの潤いのあるヴォーカルを最大限に引き立てた絶品のミディアムが並んでいる。なかでも、ケルト音楽のエッセンスをブレンドしたブライアン・イーノとの共作曲“Grafton Street”は必聴でしょ!
bounce (C)古山 悦子